REFUGES for humans & small creatures

In 2009 I made “Proposals For A Refuge” in Colin Higginson’s sculpture course at Bristol School of Art and Design. It was a series of forms and stories to explore understandings of refuge.

I wanted to explore ideas of inner or hidden space which might lie behind/underneath Western trappings of status, materialism, security and privilege. The question of “refuge” pushed me into a difficult personal space of in/security, rebellion and play. I used the opportunity of the project to reflect on contradictory relations in the politics of creativity.

 These probings of inner space were partly inspired by ‘The Three Ecologies’, a book by the French radical psychiatrist Felix Guattari, first published in 1989. His concept of territorialization describes the actions of competing forces which seek to dominate our deeply interwoven and entangled spaces (ecologies) of environment, mind and society. Integrated world capitalism seeks to surround and penetrate us with hyper-saturating images and codes of standardised desire… Guattari was a dreamer and I’m still inspired by his refusal to give in to The Man!

 Images: 2010. Text: 2022